The Evolution of Insect Flight
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- čas přidán 2. 06. 2024
- The evolution of powered flight is one of the rarest adaptations made in nature only being possessed by four groups of animals, the birds, bats, pterosaurs and earliest of all the insects. Because the insects evolved so early and because they are the only animals to evolve powered flight that aren't vertebrates the path they took to get airborne is very different. This video seeks to explain what is known about the evolution of the insect wing and how they made the transition.
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Sources:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29169...
academic.oup.com/jhered/artic...
www.sciencedirect.com/science...
cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/90246....
royalsocietypublishing.org/do...
www.sciencedirect.com/science...
I had no idea that insects are much more closely related to lobsters, crabs and shrimps than to spiders and scorpions. That is very fascinating. Certainly makes me look at them in a new way.
I didn't either, but it makes sense when one considers that the crab body has evolved independently at least five times, so it's not a big stretch of the imagination to speculate that these bodies could have used that framework to evolve further into these highly adapted "leg-wings" given the immense time frame involved.
That's why it's kinda weird that so many cultures hold crustaceans as a delicacy and insects as disgusting pests. They're basically the same, the only major difference is the relatively few kinds of insects which carry human illnesses.
its obvious, shrimp basically are just sea cockroach
@@kotarojujo2737
I've always known lobster was just sea bugs
Fun fact: People with a shellfish allergy often are also allergic to insects
But anyways Insects aren’t just closely related to crustaceans, they are themselves crustaceans (at least, in the same way that you could consider us lobe finned fish). Insects belong to the clade Pancrustacea, a group that [wikipedia] ‘comprises all crustaceans, including insects’
6:06
"The insects closest relatives are not the arthropods"
Insects _are_ arthropods, I'm pretty sure you meant to say "The insects closest relatives are not the _arachnids."_ or something like that.
I think you're right since he was showing a spider
@@benisoreilly869 most likely
agreed
yea i was a bit confused by that
yeah that confused me too
You should make a video on how organisms evolved to undergo a metamorphosis from a juvenile form to an adult form.
I like this idea
There has been a lot of very interesting research into metamorphosis. Including producing hybrids from distantly related marine organisms with complete metamorphosis. It seems that the subject is largely ignored when portraying Evolution. (Ref: the book Metamorphosis by Frank Ryan and research from Sheffield University.)
metamorphosis always boggles me
Metamorphosis is just a shortcut in the molting process. Early insects would molt their juvenile forms and change shape subtly each time but have striking differences at both ends.
Metamorphosis just fused the middle parts to one cocoon form that essentially became a second egg.
Humans go through metamorphosis from aquatic to land based while in an egg. Most animals use the egg to develop.
Part of the puzzle is silk but it probably has something to do with eggs and nests.
@@jeremymullens7167 There is the possibility that insects which undergo metamorphosis do have 2 genomes. (Ref a New Scientist Article). But yes, it is the same genes which are involved in triggering or suppressing moulting (Ecdysis) in Arthropods, nematodes etc including incomplete metamorphosis in insects.. Also the same genes involved in embryonic development in Chordates.
One of my favorite episodes so far. Arthropods, especially Insects deserve more attention regarding their evolution as well. Most paleo stuff on YT only focuses on (large) vertebrates only.
Vertebrate supremacy!
Jokes apart, humans are chauvinistic creatures by nature. We're way more likely to favor and be interested in those who share traits with us - be it as a person, a group, a culture or a species.
Too many differences create alien hard to climb walls. It estranges us from the subject, even as it fascinates the observer.
They are so facinating and mysterious since they're hard to fossilized.
plant evolution is also interesting
I think it’s because a lot of people have a natural aversion to bugs
Dragon flies are friggin perfect. Imagine being able to fly easily in any direction. Up down left right.
and having such good vision you can precisely catch flies in midair easily
Has one of the highest success rates of any predator to ever live.
Jumping spiders have better vision, but the dragon fly has insane reaction time
@@RedSquirrelHunter jumping spiders are so cool! In summer when I'm in my backyard I can often find them and they're so tiny and SO awesome. What a very cool way to live.
You forgot that dragonflies can actually fly backwards quite easily. You can see them fly by something that catches their eye, hover and then back up to study it more closely. They don't do this a lot and not for anything but short distances but they can do it which is crazy. Hummingbirds can do this too and I am sure there are others I don't know about but I'm sure it is a very rare trait.
@@ZentaBon the diffrence is jumpers still have to "move" theyr eyes /body to see around them
Dragonflys can literally look 360 ° without turning theyr head XD
Can we just take a moment to appreciate the excellent music choices Moth makes? From Dreamer to Ascension to the theme he uses in his recent videos, it feels like he takes us on a journey into the past every time.
I do think the volume of the music is a bit too low compared to the past. Nonetheless still great music choices!
I prefer the music he used in his early videos
I agree the music along with his voice makes it a very relaxing journey
I wonder what the music used in this video is
Yes, most excellent video production. Very pleasant and informative. Some channels are interesting but grate on your nerves. Few manage to strike such a great balance. Journey through the Microcosmos and GK Natural History are the only two similar natural history channels that come to mindthat come to mind.
Nah the old videos with Dreamer was much better
Let's take a moment to appreciate that Mothlight is the best channel of its kind on CZcams.
What about PBS Eons though?
"An aquatic larval stage is ancestral to all flying insects" is an important clue. Aquatic insects fly because this allows them to escape drying streams and ponds and lay their eggs in new ones, colonizing new areas.
True
Well that's very possible that the insects NEED to escape dryings streams and ponds, it doesn't mean they can order a pair of wings to do so on Amazon even if they lived in the amazonian jungle.
There are primarily flightless insects who are fully terrestrial on all stages.
Finally, someone has covered this overlooked topic, thank you! Keep up the incredible content!
PBS Eon has a video up on this for like 2 years
Just an fyi
The tree of life is endlessly fascinating. I've always been struck by the sheer diversity among insects, making it hard to figure out what are the more basal characteristics, giving the impression that we are seeing creatures from completely unrelated groups.
I think part of that is their low extinction rate. Vertebrates always get hit hard by extinction events but insects just seem to stick around and get more and more specialized.
No matter how much I learn about biology and science, it never ceases to amaze me that Nature has this unbelievable ability to adapt to it's surroundings.. Like, That's utterly amazing.
Jesus is amazing !
@@doburu4835Jesus couldn't have even known about biological evolution because he was born and died thousands of years before modern science.
@@TheVideoIsLongEnoughhe is the creator of course he would know.
@@doburu4835 I forget people still believe in bronze age mythology. Jesus was a man. God is a myth. Grow up
i just finished making food when this dropped. i could not be happier
I'm making pesto and I couldn't be more thrilled learning about sky buggies
That’s a vibe
Excellent video. I like that you covered an issue that is still unsettled, and presented multiple opposing theories. All too often, content creators have made up their mind on what explanation should be correct.
I went into a rabbit hole trying to understand the evolution of complete metamorphosis and went through this subject in the process.
Please make a video on the evolution of metamorphosis in insects, I still have many doubts and I guess there’s stuff we’ll never know, like if the nymphs adapted first and independently of their adult forms, and their adult forms secondarily adapted like two different animals over time?
Every person undergoes metamorphosis, just at different speeds. Let that sink in.
I read the wikipedia page on insect evolution recently and it did talk about metamorphosis, I’ll summarize what it said and what I believe, although all this should be taken with a grain of salt. The silverfish and bristletails do not undergo any metamorphosis but eventually a group would sprout from their ancestors and that group would gain some things as it aged, the biggest being wings (this group being the hemimetabola, incomplete metamorphosis). This made the adult form of the organism the most ideal when compared to the juvenile form as the adult form would have flight and another abilities. This would then begin the selective pressure for organisms that aged faster. It then becomes advantageous for that final molt when the insect gains flight to also include other changes, and for some of the earlier molt to be removed. Eventually very few molt would happen and that final molt would be much longer than normal, this would make that molt extremely vulnerable and would then lead to selective pressure for a harder exoskeleton while this final molt occurs. Eventually the only purpose for early molts would be to get larger meaning that the many body changes would be shoved into the final molt. That final molt being so long and dramatic would then make it be considered an entire new stage of life, the pupal stage. Technically by this point the holometabola (complete metamorphosis) would be created but I will add one last thing. A new selective pressure would be made, the competition for resources between adults and juveniles could now be destroyed. The adults would now evolve to fit one niche while the juveniles would evolve to fit a different niche, and as the two ages adapt more and more to fit different niches it would lead to the huge change in body structure that we see with butterflies, beetles, neuropterans, etc.
This has to be the best channel for relaxed education out there. The voice, music, visuals, and topics all blend so beautifully that it's almost unreal.
Not sure how much info there is on slime mold evolution since they wouldn't really fossilize but that would be a cool topic to go in depth on. Crazy protists.
I love insects, I think about them every day. it's hard for me to recall ones not mentioned in this video that can't fly! even earwigs have wings, they're SO cool. I never deeply considered how much insects rely on flight, oddly enough seems obvious to me now
Weta can't fly
@@stephenlitten1789 I googled "weta bug" and found a picture of one eating a carrot!!!!
@@kai_fatallysapphic The common ones are about 4"/100mm long fully grown
@@stephenlitten1789 they're a little scary, I've always had an irrational fear of locust-like and cricket-like insects, but also so adorable how it was just eating a carrot 🥺
he mentions ants as flightless but many ant species have morphs that are capable of flight, usually for the purpose of starting new colonies in different locations
Funny to think about that insects have likely driven the evolution of flight in other animals. They just all want to be like insects
Honey wake up, a new Moth Light Media video just dropped
I heard that flight evolved 5 times, another type of dinosaur apart from birds and pterosaurs also evolved flight using both membrane and feathers.
That's Yi Qi right? I may be wrong but I believe it is still debated whether they ever reached the point of true flight or if they were still only gliders because we still haven't figured out how strong and thick their wings are
have you looked at that thing haha? doesnt seem like it could fly at all. But it is true that within the group avialae active flight probably evolved multiple times, check out the paper by pei et al. 2020
Bats, birds, pterosaurs, insects, flying fish more of a glider
@@RedSquirrelHunter Well, its debatable if that could be called a "flight" since at least as of now they aren't fully aerial, but I never thought of gliding fish. It would be cool to know the origins of them.
@@RedSquirrelHunterGliding doesn’t count. There are many types of gliding mammals today but only bats are true flyers. Gliding is probably a prerequisite to flying though.
I feel like this is a topic that no one talks about but everyone thinks about.
Kind of wild that the mayfly is basically the insect version of an amphibian!
And they're herbivore while dragonfly is carnivore version
Video essays are some of the coolest and most interesting things I have ever seen
:) How fascinating! I always thought that insects invented flight multiple times, not all descended from the flying ancestor. Super cool video, thank you!
Top notch video as per usual! Thank you!
Thank you keep making content I love your channel and your voice !! 👏🏾
This channel never ceases to amaze. Thank you.
Love your content so much. The voice, the manner of the delivery, the music, everything.
Love learning from this channel. Far more in depth information than youd typically find in television documentary which tend to skim over just the very basic information.
I love this channel!!
Super interesting video, thank you for all the hard work
Love these videos dude, I'm always looking forward to when a new one drops keep it up!
I believe this is the best channel on CZcams. I love your content, delivery, and research. Putting things in perspective with the oldest common ancestors and the charts you use gives me so many “ah-ha!” Moments. Awesome stuff.
Excellent video as always.
Uploaded the video at the exact same time Trey the explainor uploaded one, this is going to be a fun half hour.
Thx, great content as always 💪🏼
I love these videos, they make me love and appreciate nature in entirely new ways.
This was fascinating! I really appreciate the way your presentations have a natural progression that always seems to cover the most important aspects of each topic into a logical conclusion. Thank you.
(And to @ExoRepublic, I agree with you that the background music is always excellent!)
Luv your vids, binging em all!
Fantastic!
A topic I hadn't given much thought to; but considering it further, it really is a headscratcher
The beauty and wonder of our world never ceases to amaze.
I love your content, I'll join your Patreon as soon as I'm not broke!
Fascinating as always - thanks.
Thank you! could you make a video on how insects evolved complete metamorphosis/larval stages? how did a group of crustaceans unlock the ability to have their babies shaped like worms?
Thank you for the video!
Awesome video!
I've been needing this I love you
Paleontology is so cool. Its crazy to know that Flying Insects are just hyper-adapted crustaceans, and birds are mutated reptiles.
Amazing topic and even better video about it, as usual! I am really happy to see, that you reach more and more people, interested in learning about the amazing history of species evolvement.
For my part, I am really curious about ancient ecosystems, e.g. how did some of the species lineages in your videos behaved systematically at a certain time and environment. Maybe this is also interesting for you and some more people in your audience. Of course you already give insights in exactly this topic, but maybe you could also make special videos about fascinating ecosystems, if there is already enough knowledge about them and they are useful to give further insights into the further evolving of its species and the system as a whole.
Keep it up!
I was actually surprised to hear that it's thought that herbivorous insects developed wings first, as I would have thought that carnivorous insects, in order to gain an upper "hand" in the arms race, would have developed first in order to diversify prey selection. Especially considering the nymph stages of many flying insects (today) are carnivorous. Herbivores adapting to reach new plants however, does make sense.
Mind, it didn't seem to take too long for the carnivores to catch up and considering the Gryphon Flies ruled the roost for so long, did an admirable job at that!
I think the Dragonflies are without a doubt, the coolest insects ever developed, regardless of the benefits of the Eusocial groups (ants + bees).
Thanks again Moth! :)
Best CZcams Chanel out there! Saludos from Chile, South América
This channel is a gold mine
Well done. You make very good videos. 🦋🐝🐞
World class content as always. Perhaps another good video idea is the evolution of terrestiality in plants and insects.
MOTH LIGHT MEDIA I LOVE YOU
Still. Patiently waiting for the next vid 🥹
Thanks for new video!
I’m meant to be learning for my GCSEs but this is better
Another thing that makes understanding the development of insect flight difficult is that no insect gliders survive today, and there isn’t fossil evidence for any. Because almost all insects evolved from flying ancestors, any that end up back in the air would probably just reactivate their wing genes, so it’s not like with other lineages where there are plenty of gliding fossils and living gliding creatures. Bats and pterosaurs also don’t have a well fossilized transition animal but it’s pretty easy to see how their flight might have evolved by looking at other flying tetrapods such as flying squirrels, which use a similar arrangement where one membrane connects all their limbs. Even many vertebrate lineages that have never resulted in powered flight have some gliding representatives, like snakes, lizards, frogs and fish. The only two gliding invertebrates that I know of are flying squid (in which the wings are modified fins on their mantle) and spiders that use special gossamer silk to catch the wind and balloon up into the sky. Neither of which is really helpful. Insects don’t have a mantle and the wings aren’t silk, not to mention squids aren’t even in the same phylum. If insects really did evolve their wings as a novel structure, then the glider that is closest to that is some of the lizards, which have skin flaps that extend from their sides (really hope some day they evolve powered flight because they would basically be dragons).
This is mental, brilliant 👌
nice as always
A fascinating topic
banger video thank you moth man
Good one👏🏾👏🏾
Please do how insects transitioned to land. I know literally nothing about this
It's true that being able to fly puts an animal in a very exclusive club; luckily, the Wright brothers got humanity an honorary membership.
You make my favorite paleomedia
What were those blue, dragonfly-like insects at the end of the video? They look fascinating!
Jewel wing damselflies. Cousin to dragonfly; completely gorgeous, slightly different morphology and habits. Love seeing them!
FINALLY I can't believe I missed this yesterday. Been waiting for a video on this for ages. Thanks!
On the surface, there seems to be no real way for there to be an incentive for insects to develop flight. As far as I know, flying vertebrates all evolved from gliding animals that used trees as a jumping off point. I'm going off on the assumption that flying or gliding insects began to evolve before the first trees since they were already well adapted to fly by the time trees become prominent in the Carboniferous. Personally I think it's a combination of things. The wings look similar to gills because it may be the same genes used in their construction just expressed in a different location with some adaption. The lobes being modified with already present genes just seems to be the most likely case. The advantage this would give to early insects is quite large. There were no large forests or large plants in general and the soil layer was likely quite shallow as well so there weren't may ways to avoid predators. Without big plants it would have been pretty windy and this could have been used as a fast way to avoid getting eaten and to travel to new sources of food. Insects are small, light, and relatively strong enough to easily survive this because they do so today and we know similar sized animals, like spiders, still use this as a mode of transport just using silk to catch the wind instead. It could also be used to escape a small seasonal pond before it dries up too. So it could be that flying or at least gliding insects are actually much older than currently known. Just that there's no fossils of them unfortunately.
awesome topic, i had to write an evodevo essay about this once and came to the same conclusion as you ^^
Always spot on
I was under the impression that insect wings are derived from gill structures in larval forms.
I hope you know that you have the best channel
I admire your refusal to make any Moth related Puns or Quips
Never been early for a Moth vid sweet!
I heard the latest information is that carnivorous plants evolved only once, but the crown plant had just like sticky leafs
Super Nice
Thanks biologists and geneticists are detectives on a whole new level
one of the best channels on YT. 100% quality content every time. maybe the early land insects first developed a type of sail which they used for example to harvest pollen. then as it naturally caused these insects to take off by the wind, those who learned to control the sail survived better and that caused the evolution of wing.
how about evolution of worms?
Pollen didn't exist at that time, in fact pollen is really weird: its actually not plant sperm but like a sort or separate thing that then releases sperm or something like that i don't quite know the details.
@@astick5249 how do you know pollen didn't exist at the time?
Why would an insect want pollen
@@jamestang1227 go ask bumblebees.
@@astick5249 edit: according to wikipedia earliest fossil records of pollen date to devonian period between some 400 million to 350 million years ago, the same period in which insects developed flight.
Your cladogram showing the arthropod subphyla is slightly wrong because, myriapods are actually more closely related to crustaceans than to chelicerates because they have chewing mouthparts instead of fang-like mouth parts.
And he said insect were crustaceans but they had separate branches. Little confusing
Actually, arthropods are now officially divided into just two subphyla, Myriochelata and Pancrustacea, myriapods are actually more closely related to chelicerates than to crustaceans, which on the other hand are more closely related to hexapods, myriapods have much more in common with chelicerates, while crustaceans have more in common with hexapods.
Another great video! I would love it if you labeled the animals as they're shown so I can go on a deep dive :)
I read an article about this a while ago but going at it from the DNA that said it was like a mammal evolving wings from the scapula which is a cool thought.
6:05 insects are athropods, did you want to say arachnids?
probably
Yay new content!
I quite like silverfish, they're cute and rather pretty little insects with their silver colour. :)
I've learned more cool stuff from this channel than all my 12 years of school
nice
I just learned that crickets have wings but can't fly. I think they are a very good example of how wings evolve. They use the same area where their wings are to make noise. The wings might help release pheromones or their scent into the air. So this is Amazing!! The prof is in a live insect, not a fossil! How come no one has seen this fact!🥳🎉🔥💢💥YAY!😄!
Thanks for the content. I miss the music played before.
My favorite notification of all notifications.
I always found it interesting that, like you said, the ability of flight has evolved completely independently 4 separate times. However, it’s also interesting that those 4 all have completely different ways of flying. The way an insect flies is completely different than how a bird flies, they use different body parts & evolved in different ways. Same guys for bats & pterosaurs.
I wonder what a flying fish or amphibian would look like, & how it would fly? I mean true flight, not like the current flying fish.
I always wondered how it was that insects came to have such strange ability to change their form in stages through out their life.... It must be a development through millions of years of having to molt an exo skeleton.
Interestingly, we might be in the middle of the fifth appearance of flight, since while flying fish are not true fliers yet, they ARE still capable of gliding for a good distance, and might be able to push it further in the future.
They wouldn’t have the energy or the need for powered flight. Fish can’t stay out of water for that long.
Given the rarity of the evolution of flight, it's fascinating to me that *75% of terrestrial animals can fly or had flying ancestors.*
Seems to me there could be a 3rd viable reason for wing development: Breeding/Show
Many animals have developed special ways to display for mates. In theory the origin of the wing could be as small protrusions that could move a bit and were probably brightly colored. These would be used to warn off enemies and attract mates. Being as many insects would have traveled to the top of the canopy in the forests the ones that had larger "displays" could have had a better chance to glide or slow their fall. This could have spurred these "displays" to grow in size.
Considering how even the earliest evidence of wings show them as colorful it would make sense if they were used for attracting mates.
great
New fear unlocked: Flying slugs
Using jet propulsion
Considering millipedes and centipedes all gained a boatload of limbs, albeit copy pasted legs, as they evolved, how strange would it be for an early flying ancestor to have evolved a whole new kind of limb that just happened to be an extra flat part of their exoskeleton that eventually was advantageous to gain better muscle control over?
Will there be a video on polychaetes someday?
No offense to PBS eons but it’s been a while since I have been thinking that your videos are better. Clearer and better paced explanations. And that on top of video quality (visuals, editing, sound, narration, etc.) that is on par with professionally made products. 👍👍👍